Juliette Derricotte

Juliette Derricotte

Juliette Derricotte was an American educator and political activist whose death stemming from being refused treatment after a fatal car accident in Chattanooga, Tennessee sparked outrage in the African-American community. At the time of her death she was Dean of Women...
Elizabeth Jennings Graham

Elizabeth Jennings Graham

Elizabeth Jennings Graham 1827 – 1901 Almost a century before Rosa Parks became known for desegregating the Montgomery bus system, Elizabeth Jennings Graham desegregated the private NYC streetcars. Elizabeth Graham was born free in 1827. She was a teacher who...
Mary Jane Patterson

Mary Jane Patterson

Mary Jane Patterson 1840 – 1894 Mary Jane Patterson is considered the first Black woman to receive a bachelor’s degree from Oberlin College in 1862. Patterson initially took the one year female course of studies at Oberlin but continued on to the four year male...
Mary Shadd Cary

Mary Shadd Cary

Mary Shadd Cary was the first black woman law student, enrolling at Howard University in September 1869. She graduated from Howard in 1870 with her LL.B, the first African American woman to get a law degree in the United States. She joined the growing women’s voting...
Constance Motley

Constance Motley

 Painting inspired by photo in Chester Higgins Archive. From the late 1940s through the early 1960s, Constance Motley played a pivotal role in the fight to end racial segregation. She was the first African American woman to argue a case before the Supreme Court,...
Phillis Wheatley

Phillis Wheatley

Phillis Wheatley, was the first African-American writer to publish a book in the United States. She was born in Senegal and arrived in the United States in 1761. Wheatley was named after the ship that brought her (Phillis) and the merchant who bought her (Wheatley)....